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...is a weblog about the liberal arts 2.0 edited by Jason Kottke since March 1998 (archives). You can read about me and kottke.org here. If you've got questions, concerns, or interesting links, send them along.

kottke.org posts about broomofthesystem

 

The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace

The Broom of the System

Following a long tradition on this site, I'm going to make a prediction based on very little evidence: David Foster Wallace will never write another novel. My feeling after reading The Broom of the System is that it's basically a rough draft of the novelized "version" of his "life" that eventually became the lovingly polished Infinite Jest. (That's right, two is a trend!) Or if he does, it'll be 20 years from now, when enough time has passed for him to reflect on his experiences in long-format fiction as a writer, husband, teacher, famous personage, and (if he ever has kids) father.

As for Broom itself, I haven't read enough philosophy for a proper review. The best I can do is compare it to Infinite Jest. If you want to read IJ but just can't handle its 1000+ pages and 300+ footnotes, read Broom first. If you hate it, no big deal...it's only 480 pages. But if you like it, you can safely devour IJ.

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